Simple Specifications to Avoid Costly Repairs on Your Commercial Metal Building

There are many uses for rolled steel metal buildings. Some of which include farmers, warehouse owners, factory or plant facilities, air plane hangars, and even home owners with metal buildings on their properties.   These buildings are often sold with a lifetime guarantee or something similar. This leads the builders/owners of the steel buildings to think that once it is built there would be nothing to do.  This assumption is dead wrong and will cost the owners dearly.

Developing a Good Plan of Action!

The first thing needed for a good maintenance plan would be a good wash every 18-36 months, depending on the environment. For example, a building in the desert southwest like Nevada, NM, AZ and Utah will only need to be washed every now and then to rinse the dust and any oxidation that will occur as the coating breaks down. On the other hand, metal buildings in the northeast like New Jersey, NY, DE, MD and PA will need washed every 18 months to slow the deterioration caused by oxidation of the factory finish.  Washing may extend the life span of the coating by as much as 100%, thus doubling the time before you will need to paint.

Inevitably, at some point between 10 & 20 years, most metal buildings will need to be painted. Painting of a metal building in NJ, DE, PA and NY will require much more attention to detail than painting the same buildings in the desert southwest.  This attention to detail is mainly due to the additional corrosion factors that exist in the northeast.  These factors include longer periods of damp weather, wider swings in the temperature causing more movement via expansion and contraction of the metal panels, acid rain, salt mist from ocean and bay, atmosphere affects, direct salt, and other corrosive exposures due to winter roadways and parking lots.  While a repaint of a metal building in AZ will consist of a wash and a bonding primer prior to a finish coat, buildings in the New Jersey area will need a wash possibly with Clor-rid, a de-salinization cleaner. This will remove salts, which can prevent the bonding of certain primers. Before painting these venerable metal buildings, any rusted areas MUST be either blasted or completely primed to encapsulate with a 2 part high solids epoxy mastic prior to a finish coat being applied. Keep in mind the finish coat application must be applied during the epoxy re-coat window, which means after 3-8 days, depending on the system, an epoxy may be cured completely and too hard for the top coat to properly bond.  If a steel building in the northeast is painted and rusted areas are simply painted over without either blasting or encapsulating, it is likely the rust will show again within 6 months and begin to corrode as if nothing was done at all.